EASTON, Pa. — The race to represent the northern tier of Northampton County in the state House of Representatives pits incumbent Ann Flood, a Republican seeking a third two-year term, against Democratic challenger and political newcomer Jared Bitting.
Though no polling of the race for the 138th District exists, it’s unlikely to be a nail-biter.
The 138th District, covering northern Northampton County including the Slate Belt, has a history of solidly backing Republicans for more than three decades.
In 2022, Flood won re-election with more than 61% of the votes cast, a 25-percentage-point margin over her opponent.
Flood, of Moore Township, grew up in Wind Gap. After graduating from Pen Argyl Area High School, she got a bachelor's degree in biology at Moravian University.
She was elected to the state House, her first political office, in 2020, filling the seat vacated by Rep. Marcia Hahn’s retirement.
Bitting has taught technology and engineering in Fleetwood Area School District for more than 25 years. He was raised in Berks County, and received bachelor's and master's degrees in technology education at Millersville University.
He moved to Macungie more than 15 years ago; he has lived in Bushkill Township since 2022. Bitting’s current campaign is his first bid for public office.
Both candidates point to personal tragedy as having pushed them toward running now. Flood’s daughter, Lauren, died at age 4 in 2007 as a result of a traumatic brain injury sustained at birth. Bitting’s first wife, Rebecca, died of pancreatic cancer in 2021.
Flood started a foundation in her daughter’s name, Lauren’s Hope, to benefit children who have suffered traumatic brain injuries and their families. The foray into the nonprofit world ultimately led her to seek office four years ago, she said.
“When the opportunity presented itself, I think what really got me interested is the fact that I come from a nonprofit background,” she said.
“So it gave me a broader platform to be able to help more people in the community.”
Bitting, meanwhile, points to his experience working through the death of his wife with his family as qualifying him to help other people through their own difficulties.
When the opportunity to run for office presented itself this year, “I felt I could really use what I've been through and my time as a teacher to do something valuable for the public,” he said.
“I feel like I’m someone who knows how to listen.”
Issues: Flood
Like many of her fellow Republicans running this year, Flood has worked to focus the race on two main issues: the cost of living and immigration.
Both are chiefly handled at the federal level, she noted.
The best way for state legislators to help with the cost of living is to focus on economic development, Flood said, ensuring residents have well-paying jobs instead of trying to directly tackle high prices.
She also has touted her work to expand property tax relief for seniors, and pointed to her 2023 vote to raise the income limit for Pennsylvania’s property tax relief program and increase the program’s maximum rebate.
“Abortion is legal in Pennsylvania. That's not going to change anytime soon."138th District state Rep. Ann Flood
As for addressing immigration, she said state officials can best respond by providing more support for local law enforcement.
Much of the legislation Flood has sponsored this year would change state election law in response to Northampton County’s difficulties during the 2023 general election, when mislabeled races in voting machines caused confusion but did not affect the counting of votes.
Flood’s office undertook an investigation of the county’s issues and released a pair of reports detailing their findings.
She also developed a slate of legislation in partnership with other Republican legislators representing sections of Northampton County.
The most impactful proposal, HB2062, would bar counties from buying new ballot marking devices, a type of voting machine that asks a voter to make their selections on a touch screen before printing their votes on a receipt-like piece of paper.
Instead, Pennsylvania voters would mark their ballots by hand before feeding them into a scanner to be counted.
Issues: Bitting
Bitting, meanwhile, focused his pitch on improving the state’s education system, providing more mental health resources for students and boosting school funding.
His experience as a teacher, he said, gives him a unique perspective.
“Education would be one of those big things I would want to take on right away as a thing I know best."138th District Democratic candidate Jared Bitting
“Education would be one of those big things I would want to take on right away as a thing I know best,” he said.
Among his priorities, Bitting said, would be reforming education funding in line with a 2023 Commonwealth Court ruling that found the state’s current funding system is unconstitutional.
Additionally, he said he would push for additional money for STEM education.
“That's the future of high-paying jobs for our students,” he said.
Bitting criticized Flood for voting against House Bill 2370, which would allocate $1.4 billion over seven years to overtaxed and underfunded school districts.
In a Facebook post explaining her vote, Flood wrote that the measure “falls well short of providing the transformational change needed,” and “would place a massive burden on taxpayers while providing no accountability and no meaningful measures of success.”
Bitting also said the recent boom in warehouse construction is an important issue to voters in this election. Addressing it, he said, will require paths for more coordination between communities; he stopped short of offering a specific policy prescription.
“I think there needs to be more communication, coordination between communities,” Bitting said. “I feel that on a state level, we need to provide guidance on how that communication should take place.”
Flood said warehouse construction is not a significant issue in the race, as there have not been as many built in her district as in other parts of the region.
“Warehousing isn't as prevalent as it is in the lower portions of the Lehigh Valley,” Flood said. “I'm not a supporter of warehousing, but I am a supporter of bringing good-paying jobs to the area and good workforce development.”
Abortion
Where Flood has largely avoided attacking her opponent, Bitting has been more willing to go on offense.
On no issue has that been more clear than abortion, where he called the gap between the two candidates’ positions “drastic.”
Where flood would support wholesale abortion bans, Bitting said, he would reliably support access to the procedure.
Flood backed a pair of amendments to the Pennsylvania Constitution specifying that the document does not include or create a right to the procedure, thereby cutting off one possible legal challenge to current and future abortion restrictions.
One version of the proposed amendment also specified that it was the policy of the state of Pennsylvania to “protect the life of every unborn child from conception to birth” within the bounds of the U.S. Constitution. Both proposals failed.
Flood describes herself as “pro-life with exceptions” — that is to say, she supports exceptions allowing the procedure in cases of rape, incest or a life-threatening pregnancy.
However, she argues abortion access is not at risk in Pennsylvania, and is not an important issue to voters in her district.
“Abortion is legal in Pennsylvania," she said. "That's not going to change anytime soon. When you do polling, abortion isn't even, like, the top three issues on voters’ minds right now.”
The most recent Muhlenberg College poll of likely voters in the 7th Congressional District, which includes the 138th House District, found that reproductive rights tied with democratic norms as the third-most-important issue, identified as a priority for 7% of voters.
That’s still far behind the main issue for a plurality of those polled, the economy, and five points behind the second-most-named issue, immigration.
Flood said she strongly supports continued access to in-vitro fertilization and similar reproductive health care, and opposes using taxpayer funds for the procedure except in cases of rape, incest or a life-threatening pregnancy.
For information about other contested local races check out LehighValleyNews.com's 2024 election guide.
